“I’d like to ask President Obama one question: Ex-Soviet officials admitted
they took our Air Force pilots to Russia, and experts on the president’s own
POW-MIA commission agreed it happened. So why – more than a decade later –
don’t we have those men or their remains home?”

Let them know, we want a strong and revitalized U.S. Russian Joint POW/MIA
Commission and we want our men back.

Full text from the December 11, 2012 Washington
Times “Inside the Ring” column by Bill Gertz
follows.

U.S. fails on Russia POW search

A joint U.S.-Russia presidential commission set up in 1992 to
resolve cases of missing U.S. troops is largely defunct, another casualty of
the administration’s questionable reset policy with
Moscow, according to prisoner of war activist and author Mark Sauter.

Mr. Sauter says there is evidence that U.S. Air
Force pilots were taken to Russia during the Korean War and
never returned.

“The U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on
POW/MIAs (USRJC), a presidential commission supported by the Pentagon,
produced important information in the 1990s, but is now essentially defunct
due to Russian foot-dragging and an absence of U.S. resolve,” he wrote in a
blog post Tuesday.

Norm Kass, who once was a key official
on the American side of the joint commission, said the Pentagon’s Defense
Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office failed to follow through on a Russia
offer to restart POW cooperation in 2010.

“Why does the [2010] work plan that was developed – by the way, at the
Russians’ suggestion and with their full concurrence – continue to lie fallow
even though it offers the only serious, agreed-upon way of moving forward?”
Mr. Kass, former head of the U.S. Joint Commission
Support Directorate told Mr. Sauter.

According to a Pentagon fact sheet, Russia disbanded its
participation in the commission in 2006 and blocked access by U.S. analysts
to Russian archives. Then in January 2010, the Russians restored U.S. access
to the archives. Six month later, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
issued a decree setting up the Russian side of the commission again.

“I’d like to ask President Obama one question: Ex-Soviet officials admitted
they took our Air Force pilots to Russia, and experts on the president’s own
POW-MIA commission agreed it happened. So why – more than a decade later –
don’t we have those men or their remains home?” Mr. Sauter
told Inside the Ring.

Pentagon spokeswoman Maj. Carie Parker
declined to address critics who say the Pentagon has not pursued work in the
joint commission. “The U.S. government remains committed to the U.S.-Russia
Joint Commission,” she said in a statement, adding that the Pentagon POW
office “supports the Commission and Russia has granted access to some of its
archival records. Both sides have active Commissioners.”

Read A Book:

"Abandoned in Place” provides a snapshot of
the Vietnam POW/MIA issue. From the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, in
January 1973, ending American involvement in the war in Southeast Asia to the
"dysfunctional" POW/MIA accounting effort of 2014. With the period
1980 -1981 a clear line in the sand. As the U.S.
government refocused its efforts from the rescue of surviving POWs to the
recovery of remains. “Abandoned in Place” painstakingly details the
intelligence available in 1980 that led to the conclusion American POWs
survived in Laos, six years after the end of the Vietnam War. Using never
before seen documents, the author reconstructs events leading up to a CIA
reconnaissance mission, doomed from the start, to confirm the presence of
POWs held deep in the Laotian jungle. As the CIA team headed toward the camp,
members of the Joint Special Operation Command trained for a strike of
surgical precision. Its mission rescue the POWs held at the camp known as NhomMarrott. A lack of
political will, bureaucratic failures, and leaks forced a stand-down order,
condemning any surviving POWs.

The author highlights the post NhomMarrott government accounting effort, focusing on
several specific POW/MIA cases. Crippled by a “mindset to debunk” officials
ignored evidence of capture and survival in captivity. They edited witness
statements to support pre-conceived conclusion of death and dismissed
Vietnamese admissions of capture. This despite overwhelming evidence POWs not
only survived but also continued to lay down signals in hopes of eventual
rescue. Early Reviews - Col. Don Gordon (USA-Ret) Special Operations Command,
J2 Director of Intelligence 1980-1983 – “O'Shea leads readers to form their
own reasoned conclusions. She writes the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched
compendium, private or government, classified or unclassified, about this
complicated and emotional subject. It is an event long needed
to be told accurately and with respect for the missing in action and
their families. O'Shea is fidelis to that cause.
She carefully distinguishes fact from speculation. Abandoned in Place is a
meticulously detailed, thoroughly verified, and reliable story, well told. It
describes plans to rescue about 35 United States Military servicemen
strongly believed held in a prison camp in Laos in 1980. Step-by-step, O'Shea
builds a strong case that some US military likely remained under North
Vietnamese and Lao control after the war.”

Former Senator and Vice-Chairman of the
Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs Bob Smith - “Lynn O'Shea has
provided the best in depth analysis ever written and brilliantly combined
over 25 years of personal research, evidence and a chronological portrayal of
the facts to prove, without any doubt, that America left men behind in
Southeast Asia at the end of the Viet Nam War. When we were
told that the North Vietnamese, Lao and Viet Cong had complied with the Paris
Peace Accords in 1973 and returned all of our men, the evidence shows that
was an outright lie and many of our government leaders and the intelligence
community knew it.”

Dr. Jeffrey Donahue, Brother of Major Morgan
Donahue – “Lynn masterfully connects a mind-boggling array of dots to not
only affirm the truth of the Indochina POW-MIA issue but also to rigorously
convey how and why the U.S. government knowingly left men behind and then
covered it up. Lynn has woven together tens of thousands of documents and
countless hours of interviews to produce a cogent and unassailable profile of
one of the most tragic episodes of modern American history. The how and why
have never been so brilliantly researched, documented and conveyed.”

America's
Abandoned Sons

If you are passionate about
the POW/MIA Issue, this book is a must read!

The author exposes cover ups, lies, misinformation,
deception, and abuse by our government. You will begin to see patterns that
started in World War II and continued to present day. While the Department of
Defense is claiming that other countries are withholding key information on
what happened to our servicemen, the real truth is
in still classified documents on the sixth floor of our own National Archives.

Bob Miller exposes key documents that have slipped through the
"Classified" barriers and he shares details that clearly defy the cover ups and misinformation spread by our government. You
will be shocked by the numbers and impressed with his methodology. He
documents sources and chronologically leads you through each event.

This is not a fast read. In fact, I find myself rereading paragraphs in
dismay ... and disgust!

In my opinion, the most noble career anyone could
choose . . . is defending our country. These men turn over their lives and
follow orders in complete trust that they not only are defending our country,
but also helping the world become a better place for all humanity. Can you
imagine going to war, being captured, spending years
in a prison camp, and then remaining in a POW camp after the war has ended
until you die . . . just because your country felt it politically incorrect
to save you? Bob Miller uncovers thousands of these cases!

Even more intriguing is the exposure of millions of dollars being wasted by departments claiming to address the
POW/MIA Issue. You will be introduced to individuals
making huge salaries, taking expensive trips, telling lies, and covering up
the lack of progress on the issue. You will also learn of a few individuals
outside of the government slowly making a difference.

Brace yourself. This book will stir up feelings of fear, anger, and
frustration . . . like you've never felt before!

====================================================

AN ENORMOUS CRIME; The Definitive
Account of US POWs Abandoned in SE Asia
was published by St. Martin's Press. The authors, former US Congressman Bill
Hendon and MIA daughter/lawyer Elizabeth A. Stewart, have now launched www.enormouscrime.com

An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs
Abandoned in Southeast Asia, by Bill Hendon and Elizabeth A. Stewart

(Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press)

In the Twentieth Century the United States fought
three wars in Asia: World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. In all three, thousands
of Americans were captured and became prisoners.

The fate of live American POWs in World War II was comparatively easy to
establish, because the Japanese were vanquished,
they surrendered unconditionally, and virtually all the territory they had
occupied came under American or allied control. After the
surrender, there were few, if any, places the Japanese could hide live
American prisoners of war, nor any reason they would want to.

"This
superbly researched, beautifully written book should be read by every person
in Washington with authority or responsibilities associated with American
military forces and their families. This is a history that begged to be
written out of loyalty to and respect for the American military men and women
killed during their service in war or peace. No area of interest is left unexplored. This is an extraordinary book, written
with compelling empathy, candor, and compassionate sensitivity."
—Harold G. Moore, Lt. General, U.S. Army, Ret., coauthor of We Were Soldiers
Once and . . . Young: IaDrang-The
Battle That Changed the War in VietnamNEW May 2005

This
dramatic cover-up from the Vietnam War has waited more than forty years to be revealed.

Twelve U. S. Air Force fighter planes and
twenty highly trained pilots were blown out of the
sky near Danang, Vietnam, by US-made bombs with
malfunctioning “short” fuses. Everybody knew about it, from the other fighter
pilots to the Vietnam generals and higher military echelon, and surely all
the way to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Why was it never reported in the media?

Why were these heroic martyrs brushed aside and
forgotten?

Why
was the manufacturer never named or called to
account?

And why
was the entire disaster covered up?

Life on a Short Fuse is a 240-page hardcover book plus 16 pages of
documented photos

FIRST HEROES, The Men We Left Behind
by Rod ColvinIrvinton Press

KISS THE BOYS GOODBYE, How the United States Betrayed its
own POWs in Vietnam
by Monika Jensen-Stevenson & William Stevenson Dutton Press

THE BAMBOO CAGE, The Full Story of the American Servicemen
Still Held Hostage in Southeast Asia
by Nigel Cawthorne
Leo Cooper Press

SOLDIERS OF MISFORTUNE, Washington's Secret Betrayal of
American POWs in the Soviet Union
by James Sanders, Mark A. Sauter, and R. Cort Kirkwood
National Press Books

THE MEN WE LEFT BEHIND, The Abandonment of American POWs
after the War
by James D. Sanders and Mark A. Sauter
National Press Books

MOSCOW BOUND, Policy, Politics and the POW/MIA Dilemma
by John M.G. Brown

LAST SEEN ALIVE, The Search for Missing POWs from the
Korean War
by Laurence Jolidon

DEAD OR ALIVE, The Betrayal of American POWs after WWII,
Korea, Vietnam
by Robert Pelton